The author selected the Free and Open Source Fund to receive a donation as part of the Write for DOnations program.

Introduction

With developer tools moving to the cloud, creation and adoption of cloud IDE (Integrated Development Environment) platforms is growing. Cloud IDEs allow for real-time collaboration between developer teams to work in a unified development environment that minimizes incompatibilities and enhances productivity. Accessible through web browsers, cloud IDEs are available from every type of modern device.

code-server is Microsoft Visual Studio Code running on a remote server and accessible directly from your browser. Visual Studio Code is a modern code editor with integrated Git support, a code debugger, smart autocompletion, and customizable and extensible features. This means that you can use various devices running different operating systems, and always have a consistent development environment on hand.

In this tutorial, you will set up the code-server cloud IDE platform on your Ubuntu 20.04 machine and expose it at your domain, secured with free Let’s Encrypt TLS certificates. In the end, you’ll have Microsoft Visual Studio Code running on your Ubuntu 20.04 server, available at your domain and protected with a password.

Prerequisites

• A server running Ubuntu 20.04 with at least 2GB RAM, root access, and a sudo, non-root account. You can set this up by following this initial server setup guide.
• Nginx installed on your server. For a guide on how to do this, complete Steps 1 to 4 of How To Install Nginx on Ubuntu 20.04.
• A fully registered domain name to host code-server, pointed to your server. This tutorial will use code-server. your-domain throughout. You can purchase a domain name on Namecheap, get one for free on Freenom, or use the domain registrar of your choice. For DigitalOcean, you can follow this introduction to DigitalOcean DNS for details on how to add them.

#ubuntu #cloud ide #code-server